The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal
01:11:22 · Vidit Agarwal
[01:11:22] S0: Last year I had the former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on my podcast and I asked him, I said, is, what did, what's one thing that changed after you left office? He said the phone stopped ringing. People didn't reach out to him the same way and that people that were friends were no longer there to speak to. And I think a lot of CEOs say that as well when they leave public life or they leave that CEO job, the phone stops ringing and the concept of relationships changes and they realize who's truly for them. Can you reflect on that? Has that been true in your life where some people that you thought were there for you on speed dial stopped talking to you?
01:11:57 · Alan Joyce
[01:11:57] S1: I've been very lucky with that, Vidit, because I've had a lot of people I'm still in contact with, that were colleagues that worked in Qantas, people I dealt with daily that I'm still in contact daily with now. I've had other CEOs that I've still have really good relationships with that I've run into that have been good. And I have a lot of very close friends that were outside of the business world who have been my foundation. And I have a lot of friends that we travel on holidays and they've been fantastic on it. What I don't miss is those, some of those calls. Because when you're an airline CEO, you used to get calls from other CEOs saying, we've lost, I've lost your luggage, or something, something's gone wrong on boarding, and can you fix it? And you got the calls in the middle of the night that you never used to want to miss about some problem that's occurred. Those calls. I remember I tell a funny story. Nearly in the last year, we had, as we were, the A380s were coming back out of being stored in the desert, we had one of the aircraft that had to divert into Azerbaijan, and it landed in Azerbaijan, and it was over Christmas, and I missed the call when the aircraft was trying to get back out, and they're the calls you don't want to miss. And I tell a funny story about how it was a credit card up down. The aircraft was flying out empty. The op center's credit card didn't pay for it. Was a million dollars for having the aircraft there. They rang me looking to use my company credit card for a million dollars, but during COVID, my CFO, Vanessa, is the CEO now. I put all of our limits down to $10,000 so I couldn't have paid for the diversion anyway. But those are the calls. And there was a release when I left in it, which I was on the other side of it, because it was the release of not having to worry about that, not having that obligation on you, and not having those calls, which I actually quite didn't like, by having when somebody's ringing you, it's a friend wanting a chat. It's not somebody that has a problem that you need to talk to them about. And usually those calls were all that. That was a release.
01:14:10 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:14:10] S0: Well, one CEO I know who's not a CEO anymore, I think you know this person as well, he told me he changed his phone number every time he did a new CEO job. Ah, okay. Which I thought was very interesting and he said it was because of the reason that a lot of the relationships are transactional. So he was like, I don't want you in my life. If you can find my new phone number, great. Otherwise, you're out of my life. Yeah. [01:14:31] S1: No, so that's interesting. I've had the same phone number for my entire life. I've never felt a need to change it. Somebody publishes and I get views, maybe I would. But it's, and it is interesting because it depends on what drives you as well. Is it that, and that attention never really was something I thought was important. And I think at the same time, it's also you do know who your friends are, but if you didn't know that before you started the job, and who was close to you, I think you're a bad judge of friends. So I have the same friends I've had all the way through. I have the same people I trust implicitly. I have the same people that I love being with, and they've all continued. And if you have to have people dropping out, then you're probably weren't a good judge of them in the first place. [01:15:20] S0: Yeah, yeah, I think there's some truth to that for sure. Tell me present day, so you've been out of the Qantas role, what is it three years now? Just about three years, [01:15:28] S1: Yes, three years.
01:15:28 · Alan Joyce, Vidit Agarwal
[01:15:28] S1: Yes, three years. [01:15:30] S0: Yes, you've had a lot of time to process that and it's hopefully out of the washing machine now. You've written this book, you mentioned earlier about the advisory business, which you can touch on. If someone comes to you tomorrow and says, Alan, I've got a CEO job of a big company or I've got a chair of the board job of a public company, would you sign the contract? [01:15:49] S1: I've had hetto this come to me, you should expect, about being CEOs of airlines and other companies around the world, and I have no interest in doing that. I was the CEO of what I think was the best airline in the world. I've enjoyed doing that. I did that for a long time. And I thought, you know, being there, done that, don't want to do it. I'm very keen on working with my ex colleagues new projects, but I don't want to get that same level of intensity that we had before. I don't think that's for me. You're, you know, an airline CEO is intense. I think they are dog years. They're more than a normal CEO, I think, and I did that for twenty years. So that's certainly out of my system. Mine now is looking at new opportunities, new businesses, and get involved with them maybe as part of equity or involved with them as part of sweat equity. But it's not to be a CEO of a company again. That's not for me. [01:16:55] S0: And what about the board? If someone comes to you as chair of the board, would you take that?
01:16:55 · Vidit Agarwal, Alan Joyce
[01:16:55] S0: And what about the board? If someone comes to you as chair of the board, would you take that? [01:17:00] S1: Same thing again. I've had people approach me on that. Again, airlines around the globe. What I'm keen on is this new business. That's what we're focus is. I'm also doing a bit of speaking engagements. I'm doing a lot of travel from a personal point of view, which I like doing, and anything that get gets impacted on that, is not something I I want to do. And I think you you... It was an interesting perspective having left. I think I got to focus on what I think are my good priorities now and understanding what drives me. And I know people like going from CEO to CEO, and some people are driven by that. But when you've done it, I think the average, we talked about the average life of the CEO is five years. I've done it for twenty years, so that's equivalent to having done it four times in the country. Do I need to do it again? No, I don't feel that's something that interests me or drives me. That's not something that I'm keen on.
01:18:00 · Vidit Agarwal
[01:18:00] S0: Doctor I'm curious about identity. So I've been running my own business now for seven years, and I met my wife just as I was starting my business. And one of the things she always says to me, when I met her I always said to her that work is not my life, work is one of the things I do. Now she says, she's like work is your life, like the business is you and you are the business. And it is very much candidly a part of my identity. When I meet someone I want them to approve me. Absolutely, I have that desire. How does it feel for you? Because previously you were quanta CEO, you'd go to a party or you'd speak to someone and they'd go, here's Alan, quanta CEO. Now you don't have that title, which is we've talked about for the reasons why, but how does that change your own identity? Do you walk around now going, you kind of miss a piece of yourself?